


...and awe at the power

by saltandlimes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, kallus deserves love and affection, post s3e20
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 18:10:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10496667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandlimes/pseuds/saltandlimes
Summary: Kallus has lost more than just his job. He's lost an entire world. And now, now he has to face that.Zeb is there to help him.





	

The side of the ship presses into Kallus’s back, cold, the heat leaching out of him though the thin fabric of his uniform. Kallus tries to lean back onto his armor, letting it take the pain of his new home, but it isn’t long enough, not enough to over him. He lets his eyes slip shut. Around him, he can hear the sounds of wounded rebel soldiers being tended to, led away to temporary quarters. But the sound of their groans is muffled. He feels as though he’s somehow wrapped in silence, the noise of their living, aching cries far from him. He lets his eyes slip open. The world in front of them is like one seen through the veil of a clear waterfall, changing, warping, but removed. It is the world of life, and Kallus is in the cave behind the fall, buried by his own will, his own hand. 

The hall is empty now. 

He notices it almost absently, running a hand across his face. Kallus winces as his fingers press against the bruise around his eye, but that too is muted, far from the beating space of his chest. He takes a deep shuddering breath, sliding down the wall, drawing his knees up to his heart. His fingers tremble as they wrap around his shins. 

“Come on.”

The voice is rough, cutting through the haze around Kallus. A huge hand falls on his shoulder, and he realizes his entire body is shaking now. He looks up, and there’s another hand reaching out to him, purple fur and long nails that he hasn’t seen in months. 

“Where?” he gasps out, voice catching in the armored cage of his ribs. 

“Somewhere that isn’t the floor of the main hall.” Zeb’s voice is clearer than he remembers, after so long of hearing it only over the coms. He nods, reaching out, and Zeb pulls him upright. 

The hall is truly empty as they make their way through the ship, only the distance sound of hyperspace travel and the hum of the engines breaking the calm. Zeb’s fingers seem to have chased away some of the muffling quiet. 

A door slides open, and Zeb pulls him inside. There’s a set of bunks across the way, walls painted with small murals. Kallus stands there, taking deep, shuddering breaths. He doesn’t think he’s seen a room like this in years. Since before he went to the academy. 

Zeb’s eyes are heavy on him, and Kallus rolls his shoulders under the weight of his gaze. He gasps, back pulling, muscles screaming. Zeb is over in a second. He stands too close, hands coming up, then falling back to his sides. 

Kallus says nothing. 

Zeb reaches up again, fumbling at the clasps that hold Kallus’s armor on his shoulders. He gets them open, and the shell falls away, clanging on the floor. Kallus gasps. Then Zeb is pulling him over to the lower bunk, pressing him down to sit on the edge. 

“You should have left!” 

Zeb’s voice is sharp, a whip crack in the stillness. Kallus cringes. His stomach tightens, and he shrinks away from where Zeb is now perched next to him. 

“We came to get you out and you stayed and you almost died!” Kallus’s eyes burn at Zeb’s words.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “I… I had to. I needed more time.”

“For what?” Zeb snaps. “To say goodby to the Empire?”

“I…” Kallus’s face flushes. “I had to make up…”

“Make up for what?” Zeb growls. “What was worth your life?”

“Make up for my life, Zeb. That’s what I had to fix. My entire fucking life, it was all wasted and I had to fix it.” Kallus’s voice rises, words gasping out of his chest. He clenches his fists on his thighs. The silence is coming back, coating him, thick, cloying. His eyes close again. 

For a long moment, he sits there, encased in nothingness. 

Then he feels something. Out of the dark, there’s a sudden softness. It cuts through the silence like a knife, and Kallus gasps when Zeb’s fingers run through his hair. His nails scratch lightly at Kallus’s scalp, disarranging his hair further. Kallus takes a deep breath.

“Wh-what are you doing?” he asks, eyes still closed.

“You're in pain,” Zeb grunts. His fingers continue to card through Kallus’s hair.

“They're just bruises.”

“That's not what I'm talking about.” 

Kallus opens his eyes at this, cheeks prickling with warmth. Zeb is closer to him now, and he can see the streaks of soot that have gathered in his fur, the slightly singed tip of one ear. 

“Why are you doing this?” Kallus asks. “You don't owe me anything. I couldn't even warn you in time. I couldn't… I'll never do enough.” Behind his eyes he can see the explosions of Thrawn’s ground assault, imagine the flames that have left their grimy marks in Zeb’s face and arms. “And now they’re dead. Sato, all those people on your… our base.”

His cheeks go damp, eyes filling, throat tightening. He can’t get the image of Sato’s ship ramming Konstantine’s interdictor out of his mind, the explosion flashing out across the dark starfield, dead breaths gasping in the vacuum of space. 

“He’s dead,” he gasps out. 

“Sato? A lot of people are dead, Kallus.”

“Konstantine. I’m talking about Konstantine.”

“Him!?”

“After everything, after he stood there and gloated while I was made a prisoner, after he left me to die on that ice planet, somehow, Zeb, somehow I still can’t believe he’s gone. I thought… once upon a time I thought he was my friend. And now, now he’s nothing more than ash. It’s absurd, but I still care that he’s gone.”

Zeb pulls back. He shifts on the bunk, lips pulling back. Then his fingers come around, running across the edge of Kallus’s chin. 

“That’s why you’re one of us, Kallus. Because you care.”

They sit there for long minutes. Zeb’s words hang in the air between them. Then, molasses slow, he pulls Kallus closer to him, an arm wrapping around Kallus’s waist. They slide back on the bunk, until Kallus is cradled against Zeb’s shoulder. It’s almost like they slept in the cave, all those months ago, but here, there is no waking up from a dream to find that the cold will follow him home. 

Instead, Zeb is solid at his back, and Kallus can feel the slow thump of his heart. He tries not to press back into Zeb’s arms. It’s so much warmer than he can ever remember being, warmer than cradling the meteorite to his chest under the covers, back in his bunk. Kallus can feel himself opening up, the layers of silence dropping off of him to melt around them. 

As sound comes back to the world, Kallus shifts uneasily. He rolls his shoulder, trembling a little as they meet Zeb’s wide chest. There’s a low rumble from Zeb, and Kallus starts. 

“Calm down,” Zeb mutters. 

Kallus reaches up and runs a hand over his face. His cheeks are still wet, still soaked through with the pain of his own choices. 

“What… what are you doing?” Kallus asks.

“What I choose,” Zeb tells him. Kallus shivers as he feels Zeb’s face rub across his hair. “You need this.”

“I don’t even know what this is,” Kallus explains to him. He’s never had this, never had the feel of breath whispering across his neck, the soft slide of Zeb’s fur across his skin. A huge hand comes to rest on his belly, pulling him closer, fingers stroke over his skin, teasing at the curves of his abs through his uniform, petting. 

“This is comfort,” Zeb says, lips fluttering at the edge of Kallus’s ear. “This is being free.”

And Kallus falls asleep there, curled into Zeb’s arms, silence melted away, calm, the salt of his tears a single memorial for his lost world.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been lurking in this ship for a long time, and I'm so happy to finally write something!
> 
> Come hang with me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/)


End file.
